sometimes goodbyes really are forever
by Karabara
Summary: its a brooke story. rated R for language, abuse and violence and such.. please read and review! hope you like it
1. braclets

_See I was on the verge of breaking down  
Sometimes silence can seem so loud  
There are miracles in life I must achieve  
But first I know it starts inside of me, oh  
If I can see it, then I can be it  
If I just believe it, there's nothing to it_

_I believe I can fly  
I believe I can touch the sky  
I think about it every night and day  
Spread my wings and fly away  
I believe I can soar  
I see me running through that open door  
I believe I can fly  
I believe I can fly  
I believe I can fly_

She intertwined the colored string in her fingers and knotted it, the beautiful bracelet was taking form as she quickly worked.

She noticed how her hair fell in front of her face and some pieces stuck to the edges of her pure skin. Beads or swear glistened on her forehead from the sunlight pouring into the room.

She hears the garage door open and a screeching car backing out. Brooke knew at once that this was her mother leaving again for one of her "jobs" or "errands". She often had a strange feeling that someday her mom wouldn't return.

You see so many commercials where they're telling the parents to know where there kids are and what the hell they're doing,

But what about what the parents are doing?

Brooke remembers when she was a young child, she would always ask, "where are you going, mommy?"

"Oh I have to go to the store hunny." She mom would answer with a flat tone. Brooke could always she the dark circles under her moms' eyes and how her face would always look sad and tired. She often wondered if her mom slept at night.

Brooke's mom was normally a very beautiful lady with dark brown hair, just like Brooke, but now she hardly wore makeup and her hair was sometimes not brushed, this was now her normal look.

"Can I come with you?" a young Brooke would always ask with tears in her eyes, hanging on for dear life to her mothers waist.

"No, hunny, you have to stay here." Her mom would always say while prying the child's arms off her waist. And she would leave, with nothing else being said.

Now, for all Brooke knew, her parents could be dealing fuckin' drugs and she could come home one day from school with a house surrounded by police cars and cops leading the ashamed parents out in handcuffs.

What would happen then? Where would Brooke go?

She knows that she always must walk on needles, because there's never any telling what's going to happen next...

There's no telling what Lucas might say to her in a house when he calls. There's no telling if her mom remembered to get groceries this week so she could feed herself tonight, only to throw it back up again.

"Shit" she said softly as she missed a string, causing the pattern to discontinue. She cut the string off and threw it in her 'care bears' trashcan that she got at the mall with Peyton when she was 11.

She didn't want to see her bracelet that she had made a mistake on and messed it up, reminding her once again she wasn't good enough for even herself. She wasn't good enough for anyone. She wanted so bad to hop up off her bed, sit down on the floor, and just cry. Cry her soul out. Cry so hard blood would start flowing from her eyes because there would be no more tears left.

She knew that no matter what she did, it wasn't good enough for anyone. She didn't deserve this; she didn't deserve nice clothes or a family, even if it was never there for her.

But she was convinced of one thing- she did deserve to feel alone, yet she wouldn't even wish that feeling on her worst enemy.

She snatched the green lighter off her bedside table. She flicked it on and flung herself back. She landed on her throw pillows that were neatly organized on her bed. She watched the flame as it moved and danced. she watched as the colors alternated and faded in and out.

To her, she was like a flame, slowly fading out.


	2. gravel road

_Never knew I could feel like this  
Like I've never seen the sky before  
I want to vanish inside your kiss  
Every day I Love You more and more  
  
Listen to my heart, can you hear it sing  
Telling me to give you everything  
Seasons may change, winter to spring  
But I Love You, until the end of time_

_-Come what may – Moulin rouge_

She's not there, but she is. She knows she shouldn't. She shouldn't be watching Lucas point down a gravel path. She shouldn't be watching herself obey his command. She shouldn't be surrendering herself to him like she is some helpless kid who just wants to be loved.

She's cold.

She pulls down the sleeves on her dark blue shirt to cover her hands, and she crosses her arms a crossed her chest. Her steps are large but her breaths are short and choppy. She sees the traces of her breath in the air making clouds.

Its quiet,

Except for the sound of her whispering breathing and the sound of the angry gravel beneath her feet. She knows he's behind her but she doesn't want to look at him. She knows he's watching the ground. Just as she is, like its just gonna jump up and tell her exactly what she doesn't want to hear.

She can't feel his eyes on her.

Neither one of them want to say anything. But everything is screaming silently by them, there's no one, except the trees. Streaks of tears stain her face. She wont let him see her. She can't let him know that every second he doesn't say something the more he's hurting her.

She can feel the weight of his eyes on her now; the feeling sends shill coldness through her body. The tears start to freeze onto her cheeks; she can't let them get too far from her. That's just more tears that she sacrifices for him. It hurts for her to walk. The weight is making her want to sit and cry, but she wont. She wont let him win.

The gravel road seems to go on forever and she watches how the ends of her new jeans are fraying.

Her edges are fraying.

How much Brooke wants to tell him, but she knows in her heart she knows.

So much she wants to take back. So much he hurts.

She hears him stop and only then does she look up. She doesn't turn around to him, she doesn't do anything, just watches the place he was lead her to.

She knows what's gonna happen next...


	3. the closet

**Keep the noise low.  
She doesn't wanna blow it.  
Shaking head to toe  
while your left hand does "the show me around."  
Quickens your heartbeat.  
It beats me straight into the ground.  
  
You don't recover from a night like this.  
A victim, still lying in bed, completely motionless.  
A hand moves in the dark to a zipper.  
Hear a boy bracing tight against sheets  
barely whisper, "This is so messed up."  
  
Upon arrival the guests had all stared.  
Dripping wet and clearly depressed,  
he'd headed straight for the stairs.  
No longer cool, but a boy in a stitch,  
unprepared for a life full of lies and failing relationships.  
  
(Up the stairs: the station where  
the act becomes the art of growing up.)  
  
He keeps his hands low.  
He doesn't wanna blow it.  
He's wet from head to toe and  
his eyes give her the up and the down.  
His stomach turns and he thinks of throwing up.  
But the body on the bed beckons forward  
and he starts growing up.**

**  
The fever, the focus.  
The reasons that I had to believe  
you weren't too hard to sell.  
Die young and save yourself.  
The tickle, the taste of...  
It used to be the reason I breathed  
but now it's choking me up.  
Die young and save yourself.**

**-Brand new-sic transit Gloria...glory fades**

The darkness is cutting deep into her soul. She is sitting, silently in her closet with the door shut tight. It is a small space so she's kind of cramped. She hugs her knees tightly to her chest as she listens closely to the sounds of her father screaming at her mother. Every once and a while she will her something break, Probably a vase or a stupid plate. Tears are burning there way down her face as she clamps her eyes shut.

Sometimes she pretends she is someone else. Sitting with her mommy and daddy watching Americas funniest home videos, Laughing and eating popcorn.

Sometimes she pretends she's somewhere else, away from the hard voice of her father.

Today she replays the events of the day before a million times in her dead. Cutting into her soul deeper. Leaving a pale scar.

**Lucas walks to her, there both looking around at where the dead gravel path led them. Brooke looks down, she cant look at him, she cant bare the pain any longer.**

"**I'm sorry Lucas." She whispers. Her voice cracks a little on 'sorry'**

**He doesn't say anything, but she knows what he's thinking. She knows that sorry isn't going to fix anything. Not now.**

**She looks around. He brought her to their first date. Back when all he had to do was look at her to make her smile, back when she believed him every time he told her 'everything is gonna be alright'.**

**Not anymore.**

**She looks at the grass, its damp from the cold evening dew. She looks at the pond. The water looks so dark and still, dead.**

She stops.

She heads her mom scream.

Reality rushes back into her when she realizes her mom has **never **screamed like that before.

Did her kill her?

"Please don't let him find me tonight...not tonight..." she sobs softly as she clamps her eyes shut to keep the tears from flowing out, though it doesn't work.

She tries again to make herself disappear to somewhere else when reality pulls her sharply back when she hears her fathers footsteps getting closer to her.

"Not tonight..."


	4. breathing

-Lost and broken

Hopeless and lonely

Smiling on the outside

Hurt beneath my skin

My eyes are fading

My soul is bleeding

I'll try to make it seem okay

But my faith is wearing thin

So help me heal these wounds

They've been open for way too long

Help me fill this soul

Even though this is not your fault

But I'm open

And I'm bleeding

All over your brand new rug

And I need someone to help me sew them up-

"I don't think its alive.." Brooke says, half to herself, have to Lucas who's sitting on her bed across the room as she's taping on the glass of the fish tank. "Mr. waffles" she calls in a sing-song type of voice, as if to wake him up.

Suddenly the fish moves slightly down and then floats back to the top and remains there, but moves his fin slightly so that Brooke knows its alive.

"Cudda swore that thing was gonna be dead by this morning" she says again, half to herself, half to Lucas.

Lucas sits on her bed careful not to move, careful not to talk, or even breath to heavy. He sits with his hands clamped tight under his legs as his feet dangle from the side and not quite touch the floor.

She spins around to see him... he looks terrified. She rests her eyes on his tired face. He hurts her so much- she hurts so much to see him like this.

"Lucas I told you I'm sorry, I didn't mean to do it. Its not because of you I swear." She says, making it so that her face is of concern, not pain. She's good at hiding that kinda thing; no one really knows how to read her eyes.

"Brooke im scared for you I really am. Why would you do that to yourself anyway." Lucas said, he cant look up at her, he just cant.

"I don't know why I cut myself, a lot of times people don't." She cant look at him either, she knows he will never be able to read her eyes, but she's still worried he will find out that she's lying to him, she cant risk that.

She wonders why he doesn't figure it out for himself; yeah there are cuts on her arms- well, not cuts, more of gashes. But they're on both- and its not like she's ambidextrous. And plus there's also bruises... and it would be pretty hard to bruise yourself. I suppose though if you wanted to bad enough you could.. but in a hand shape?

She turns around real quick as to push memories of that night far behind her, because now all she can see is her father flinging open her closet door, and its not Lucas sitting on the bed anymore, its her dad. And is not Lucas's voice calling her name... its her fathers harsh voice looking for blood.

She grabs the knob on her stereo and flicks it so the volume goes as far up as it can go and she put her hands over her ears and just started screaming...

ANYTHING to get rid of her father- anything to get rid of Lucas's burning eyes.

She clamps her eyes shut tight and wishes her memories away, wishes her pain away- she counts to ten in her head and pretends she's somewhere else, not here, anywhere but here.

Just wishing she was someone else.

Then it all went black- and it was all quiet, and Lucas wasn't there anymore and there wasn't any music blaring in the background and she couldn't see if her fishy was still alive, or if it had gone belly up, there was nothing-

* * *

next morning

* * *

Etta James sing loud on her alarm clock when she woke up. She clamped her hands on her forehead, as if she had a hangover...

But she didn't.

She looked over at the clock... 5:45am... as usual. She pressed the bottom on top of the clock and Etta James stopped singing at last.

Though she didn't have a hangover, her head felt like shattered glass when she sat up. She felt dizzy and fell back on her bed. She couldn't move- it was like her whole body was weighed down by pounds and pounds of sand.

Her arms ached and she winced when she went to move them. She didn't want to look at them, but she decided she should, to make sure nothings bleeding.

They weren't, but they had been, all over the bed, and the gashes were fresh, they weren't scabs like last night, but there weren't any new additions. She knew her father hadn't come home last night.

But when she saw the bloody gauze bandages, she knew someone tried to help, someone tried- but she must not have let them.

She heard the garage door make sounds as they slightly vibrate her floor. She tensed her whole body because she didn't know if it was opening or closing and she covered her head, she didn't want to take any chances if it was her dad... and she couldn't move to the closet if her life depended on it-, which it very well could.

It wasn't.

It was her mother. She found out because soon she mother appeared at her door and threw her a granola bar and told her to eat and that shed call the school if Brooke didn't want to go to school.

Brooke nodded and didn't remove her arms from under the blanket.

"Don't think that im going to stay home just because you're probably either high, drunk, or having a hangover, either that or your pregnant." Her mother reminded her.

Brooke sighed in deep, deep so it would hurt her lungs, deep so that it would burn on the way down.

So deep.

-good charlotte... "wounded" (hidden track)


	5. first aid kit

I know that it never goes away  
all i feel, everything I'm not today  
so i try and i try to make everything right  
i don't feel like I'm doing it, it affects me  
  
you wouldn't listen even if i told you  
who the fuck am i to say?  
You're too busy with the lies they sold you  
another cure to fix your day  
open wide for all the shit they feed you  
while the TV defecates  
and blindly walk wherever they will lead you  
while the edges slowly fray  
  
i know that everything can change  
what i need is to open up again  
so never again will i look back in vain  
cause today's not the past,  
i don't need to relive it  
  
are you satisfied?  
I've given all i can and are you pacified  
or do you want more from me?  
  
I've learned that this life's not just a game  
just a line between the pleasures and the pain

-Staind fray

Her eyes open vividly...

She thinks that her parents are still drunk from last night, or just woke up early and started to drink...

Drunk before 8:00 am? Man...

She tries to sit up, but her body seems to have a different plan for today, it seems like she is being weighed down. Like chains were tied to her wrists and ankles and her body was tossed into the sea.

She squeezes her eyes shut and then opens them again, carefully listening to see if she could hear any noises going on downstairs.

She can hear very few things, she can here her mom throwing away stuff, probably empty vodka bottles. She can hear her dad searching for his car keys- he's going to drive drunk again, it kills her. She just prays he's sober enough not to get himself killed, but then again maybe it would be better for her and her mom if he was killed.

Finally she hears her father slam the door leading to the garage and a few minutes later the garage door open and the car speed out onto the gravel driveway.

Brooke pulls herself up to a sitting position. She wonders if her moms drunk. She can always tell if her moms drunk. Her mom will have glazed over eyes. Her face will have no color, and her hair will look dry. But the thing that always gives her away is her smile, the kind of smile that you see when a person isn't really there, when there empty and hurt...

See... Brooke's mom doesn't drink for the hell of it... no, not like Brookes father; her mom drinks until she cant feel the pain anymore, the emotional pain that her husband forces upon her.

And the physical pain her husband also forces upon her.

The stairs creaked as brooks soft footsteps crept down them. She was going to see if her dad had his glory last night- a.k.a nearly killing her mom.

But first she must see if her mom was drunk, if she was- she couldn't let her mom see her because then she would blame Brooke for the way her husband treats her- she will blame Brooke and she wont even know that with every word its making a deeper scar in Brookes soul.

Brooke reached the wall that stood between her and the kitchen. She knew her mother would be in the kitchen, she always was. Cleaning the counters. Back and forth with a damp wash cloth, back and forth, back and forth.

Brooke once heard on the radio that cleaning or ironing reduces stress because of the back and forth motion. She understood her mothers' ways now.

Brooke reached her head out so that she could look behind the wall at her mother.

She wasn't drunk. Just had a hangover- that's all.

Brooked walked out into the entrance of the kitchen, examining her fathers work. A new black eye and some trashes on her arm- they were still bleeding a little.

She bent down and opened the cabinet under the sink to where her and her mother hides the first aid kit and grabbed it, she swung it up onto the counter and opened it.

She no longer heard her mother cleaning the counters anymore. Brooke spun around to make sure her mother was still there. And she was, she was standing there looking at Brooke with nothing in her eyes.

Brooke continued gathering her supplies as she walked toward her mother and grabbed her moms' hand and led her to a chair by the table. Her mom sat down as Brooke pulled up another chair and placed her supplies down on the table. Her moms' arm reached out just enough for Brooke to have a good look at the wounds.

Her mom was now crying silently, her face wasn't red and there were no whimpering noises, only tears slowly falling down the side of her cheek and to her lips.

Brooke took a cotton swab and disinfected her moms' wounds and applied gaze bandages over them to help them close up.

"Now remember, these have to be off by the time dad gets home, if he sees you with them on..." Brookes voice trailed off as she shut her eyes and opened them hard- so her mom would not notice.

Suddenly something happened that never had happened before.

Her mothers' head fell over onto brooks shoulder, no other part of her body was touching Brooke, just her forehead pressing into Brookes shoulder.

Brooke didn't move until she heard her mothers faint whimpering sounds. Her mother has never done this- her mother has never given Brooke any kind of hug or kiss or anything. Brooke didn't know what to do until finally she realized her mom just wanted someone to hold her.

Brooke cautiously put her hands on her moths back as the whimpering sounds grew louder to a soft muffled cry and Brooke tightened her hands into a hug.

They sat like that for a long time, at least an hour or two, not even realizing the time. Because the longer they sat there the further the clock inched its way toward the time were her father would come home until suddenly the garage down opened.

Brooke and her mother jumped up from the table putting all the supplies into the first aid kit when

**BANG**

The door flung open and the first aid kit smashed onto the ground and everything fell out. Brookes father stood there looking at the first aid supplies by his feet in astonishment and Brooke and her mother stood- frozen, silently praying that maybe in there wildest dreams he didn't notice. He slowly bent down, as Brooke and her mom didn't even dare to move. He picked up the metal box that was suppose to hold the supplies. He slowly stood up with the kit in his hand and flung it at the wall with all his might, about 2 inches away from Brookes face.

She felt her stomach do a big flip and she could of swore her heart stopped beating for a few seconds.

Her father took big steps toward Brookes mother and her, his big clumsy hand swung back and then came forward and fiercely slapped Brookes mother as hard as possible, she fell to the floor but didn't make a sound as he pushed Brooke up against the wall and with one hand under her chin, the other one swung open the drawer next to them that held the silverware. He whipped out a knife and placed it at Brookes' neck.

So close

But not close enough to cut her.

And he whispered:

"I...hate...you...and that bitch down on the floor right now, you both took my life away and I want it back!!" and with that he grabbed a hold of Brookes color and whipped her around as hard as he could and let go, sending her into the wall on the opposite side of the kitchen, near the stairs.

She knew she was going to die, she just knew it, she couldn't pick herself up if it meant her life, which right now was quite possible. But somehow she managed.

You know, when your scared you can just about do anything.

And she did, she picked herself up and hurried up the stairs when her dad had turned around. She almost fell a few times but she managed to get down the hall to her room and to close the door and lock it, jam a chair under the handle, and lock herself in her closet. She crouched into a ball in the way back corner of her small closet and cried.

She cried as she listened to plates' break, and angry yelling from her father, and high-pitched scream/crying from her mother, and lamps shatter, and her mothers small body being thrown against the wall- as she had just been. She listened to the liquor bottles being smashed against the wall, and bloody-murder screams from her mother. She listened until it all ran down, and everything became increasingly quite, until there was no more sounds.

No more anything- and everything was black.


End file.
